Pharmacy won’t provide lethal drug for Missouri execution

An Oklahoma pharmacy has agreed not to supply compounded pentobarbital for an upcoming execution in Missouri, following a lawsuit filed by the convict arguing the substance is likely to cause “ultimately inhumane pain.”

The lawsuit was filed by Michael Taylor, whose execution is
scheduled for February 26 and who alleged that Missouri could
obtain the lethal drug - pentobarbital - from the Apothecary
Shoppe of Tulsa.

A federal judge ruled last week that the pharmacy must suspend
the supply of the drug to Missouri until further review. The
Apothecary Shoppe chose to settle the case out of court.

"The Apothecary Shoppe has agreed that it will not prepare or
provide pentobarbital or any other drug for use in the execution
of Michael Taylor," Carrie Apfel, Taylor's attorney, said in
a written statement, according to St Louis Public Radio. She also
said the pharmacy had not sold any drugs to the Department of
Corrections for this execution yet.

The settlement comes as US states which implement capital
punishment face a growing shortage of lethal substances,
following the 2011 decision by the EU to stop altogether the sale
and export to the US of drugs that could potentially be used for
executions.

The move has forced some of the states still to switch from a
three-drug cocktail used in the executions to just one drug –
pentobarbital.

The only licensed manufacturer of pentobarbital, Illinois-based
Akorn Inc., purchased exclusive rights to the drug from a Danish
company two years ago. The condition for the transaction was that
the American firm agreed not to sell the substance for lethal
injections.

Thus, the only option left is obtaining the substance from
compounding pharmacies. In his lawsuit, Taylor, according to AP,
gives several recent executions as examples of compounded
pentobarbital causing "severe, unnecessary, lingering and
ultimately inhumane pain."

One such example is the execution of Michael Lee Wilson, 38,
carried out in Oklahoma January 9.

Taylor alleged in his lawsuit that Wilson’s words described
"a sensation consistent with receipt of contaminated
pentobarbital."

The lawsuit also questions whether the Tulsa pharmacy can legally
produce compounded pentobarbital and deliver it to other states.

It’s not yet clear how Apothecary Shoppe’s decision not to supply
pentobarbital to Missouri will impact the scheduled execution of
Michael Taylor, who pleaded guilty to abducting, raping and
stabbing to death a 15-year-old Kansas City girl in 1989.

"The Department of Corrections is prepared to carry out that
execution," Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon said at last week’s news
conference, according to AP.

A high-ranking state official revealed last month that the state
possessed another lethal drug - midazolam.

Midazolam’s use has been deemed highly controversial, following
its use in the January 16 execution of Dennis McGuire, a convicted
rapist and murderer, in Ohio. The execution lasted for 25 minutes
and was marked by the prisoner’s prolonged gasping for air.

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe reacted to the execution by describing it as “cruel
and inhuman” and calling on Americans to protest against “such
atrocities.”

New lethal substances are likely leading to longer and more
painful executions, according to a recent study by researchers affiliated with
Britain’s Guardian newspaper, who examined three years’ worth of
executions carried out in Texas, the state that fulfills more of
its death penalty sentences than any other in the US.

Facing a shortage of lethal drugs, some states have been
pondering switching to older methods of execution. Virginia has
been considering legislation which would force a prisoner to
accept electrocution in the absence of the drugs needed for
a lethal injection.

Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster has spoken of the return
of the gas chamber in the state, while Missouri State Rep. Rick
Brattin in January proposed making firing squads an option for
executions.